DEATH and DIMINUTION

i've got this weird DEATH SAVE rule I've been using, it's pretty simple:

everybody has a DEATH SAVE. you roll 1d6 and write down the result, and write DEATH SAVE or draw a big skull or something. the death save should stare out at you from the page, humbling you. "I want to jump over this chasm - but if I fall, there's a 3-in-6 chance I will die," you will say.

so whenever you are hit by an attack that takes you down to 0HP, make a DEATH SAVE.
or when a thing happens that should kill you, or when the book says 'save or die', make a DEATH SAVE.

to make a DEATH SAVE:
roll a d6, get on or under your DEATH SAVE score.

if you fail, you are dead.
if you succeed, you are not dead, and (optional variant: you heal a little) and (optional variant: you lose a thing), and your death save goes down by one, so that with each successful save you are slowly ticking down to the day when you will die. if your death save reaches 0, you can still do adventures if you want to, but you can't succeed a DEATH SAVE anymore.

the DEATH SAVE increases by one each time you level up.

HOW TO MINMAX A D&D NEXT GUY

(using the optional point-buy rules)

the standard array:
[15,14,13,12,10,8]   basically not good for humans (need mostly odd)
                     AND not good for demihumans (need mostly even)

the point buy system in the book suggests (as most extreme and most boring cases):
[15,15,15,8,8,8]     okay for a human, but three bad scores.
[13,13,13,12,12,12]  +1 to everything. dumb.

so these are pretty bad examples to include in the book.
there are essentially four kinds of guys you can make in d&d next:

I:   humans with +3 to one ability score and +1 to all the rest
II:  humans with +2 to two scores and +1 to all the rest
III: demihumans with +2 to one score
IV:  demihumans with +1 to two scores

you need to point-buy differently in each case - so a cautious player (with access to the point buy system) will spend too much time making a guy. d&d next character creation is full of little problems like this. (if you are a dm running d&d next and a player asks to use an optional rule, "hey I can create my own background right?" say no) (I always do all the optional stuff)

numbers in [] brackets are the original scores just from point buy.
numbers with no brackets include bonuses from race and class.

good sets for a human:

(I: humans with +3 to one ability score and +1 to all the rest)
18,16,16,9,9,9    [15,15,15,8,8,8]    (three good scores, three bad)
                                      (as suggested in the book)                                     
18,16,14,14,12,9  [15,15,13,13,11,8]  (four good scores, one bad)
                                      (much better)                                     
18,14,14,14,13,10 [15,13,13,13,12,9]  (or this)

(II: humans with +2 to two scores and +1 to all the rest)
16,16,14,12,11,11 [14,14,13,11,10,10] (three good scores, no bad)
16,16,13,12,12,12 [14,14,12,11,11,11] (no bad scores)

good sets for other races:

(III: demihumans with +2 to one score)
16[14],14,14,10,10,10     (two good scores, no bad)
16[14],14,12,12,11,10     (no bad scores)

(IV: demihumans with +1 to two score)
16[15],16[15],14,12,8,8   (three good scores, two bad)
16[15],14[13],14,10,10,10 (three good scores, no bad)
14[13],14[13],14,12,12,10 (three good scores, no bad)

(all this is from the current playtest packet. maybe the game will not be like this when it's out.)

weird table

this is like the laziest DM tool ever but it works so whatever.

for my village generator on abulafia i made this one table, that will madlibs a weird adjective in before any noun to make it more weird. I keep finding places to use it when I'm generating other stuff.

 example: [weird] wolf, [weird] wizard, [weird] sword, [weird] room, [weird] mine.

MAYBE WEIRD
1-4 regular
5-6 weird


WEIRD
1 fish
2 bug
3 egg
4 fungus
5 glass
6 slime
7 poison
8 soul
9 acid
10 salt
11 crystal
12 clock
13 vapor
14 sex
15 dream
16 sleep
17 imaginary
18 blood
19 flesh
20 bone
21 bile
22 ash
23 tentacle
24 trash
25 time
26 space
27 quantum
28 cosmic
29 extradimensional
30 non-euclidian